


between the lines

by erzi



Category: ACCA13区監察課 | ACCA 13-ku Kansatsuka
Genre: M/M, spoilers from ep 5 onwards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-09 10:58:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10410642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erzi/pseuds/erzi
Summary: He sits at home, a small stack of his most recently developed photographs in his hands. He looks. Remembers.





	

Even without his royal assignment, Nino is sure he would have found photography one way or another. Human memories are fallible, prone to the whims of the mind – forgetting the unpleasant, exaggerating the good, and sometimes entirely creating the false. But photographs are the _truth_. There is no reality but the still frames they offer; they are tangible, physical proof of a life lived. With photographs, Nino can hold proof that he _was;_ that he has experienced these moments, frozen in time. And the emotions that came with seeing them remain forever, deep and real.

He sits at home, a small stack of his most recently developed photographs in his hands. He looks. Remembers.

Nino smirks. The first, atop the pile, is of Jean, an eyebrow raised, with an empty plate in front of him and a smudge of cream by his mouth.

* * *

Jean was always enthusiastic about trying new cafes. But it did take someone who knew him well to pick up that spark in his eye, the slight upward quirk of his lip. Someone like Nino. Of course.

This place, despite being new, already had glowing recommendations. Jean intended to find out if they were deserved, and on a quiet morning, asked Nino to come along.

"I heard their coffee cake is really good," Jean said, from behind the menu in his hands.

"But you're still going to order the strawberry cream cake, aren't you?"

Jean folded the menu with a smile. "And you're getting the chocolate sponge cake."

Nino laughed.

Their orders were taken and came quickly. Jean grabbed his fork and took a piece, making sure to get a whole strawberry with it.

"It's good," he decided. "The cake tastes like actual strawberries. No fake flavoring. And the cream isn't too sweet. How's yours?"

Nino swallowed his own forkful. "Not chocolaty enough," he said, disappointed.

Jean stole a piece of Nino's cake and savored it. "This is fine," he said. "I think something would have to have raw cocoa beans on it for you to consider it chocolaty enough." 

Nino laughed again. It was so easy, with Jean around.

Jean took another bite, bigger now, and then pushed his plate toward Nino. "Here, you can try it."

"Are you sure? You seem to be enjoying it, and it's a small slice."

"I am enjoying it, but that doesn't mean I don't want to share it."

"What if I like it more than what I ordered, and I eat your entire cake?"

"You would never prefer anything strawberry over even the worst chocolate cake," Jean said, sounding almost offended Nino would insinuate otherwise.

Nino wiped his chocolate-covered fork on a napkin, helping himself to a piece. "It's alright," he said.

"See, nothing to worry about," said Jean, taking his plate back.

Nino grinned. "I should have known."

The clinking of forks on plates. Light background music. Sunlight warm through the windows. Chatter dotted with comfortable silence. A thousand other days like this one, all treasured.

"I'll wait until you're done," Jean suddenly said, making Nino look up. He stifled a laugh at what he saw, his hand reaching for his camera around his neck all of its own.

Between the lines of the camera's grid, Jean coolly raised an eyebrow in silent question, unaware of how he looked. And then that moment was captured.

"What was picture-worthy about that?" Jean asked.

Nino grabbed Jean's napkin and leaned across the table, wiping a bit of cream from Jean's face.

"Oh," Jean said, understanding even before Nino, who now snickered, showed him the picture.

* * *

Nino puts the photo on the left side of the table, and then eyes the next one. Another of Jean, but this was taken at nighttime. The sky is deepening behind him, accenting the white of his cigarette smoke.

* * *

"You always seem to know where I am," Jean said as Nino took a seat alongside him on the bench.

Something in Nino tightened.

If only he knew.

He offered a smile, instead. "Long day?"

Jean leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. "You could say that," he sighed. He reached into the inside of his uniform jacket for what Nino knew would be his cigarette case and lighter. The lighter clicked, and the cigarette's end was bright with a tiny flame like a tiny star.

Nino glanced at the sky. The sun was setting, taking with it the warm colors of the world, and the night was beginning to bleed in like ink. The real stars weren't visible quite yet, but they were waiting. They always were.

He wasn't the one smoking, yet he could still taste the acridity of the tobacco. The smell had bothered him when Jean first took up the habit. Now, it was familiar, and almost welcome. It was Jean's smell, after all.

He turned to Jean, some glib comment on the tip of his tongue, but it melted. The sky was purpling behind Jean, and the lamp across the street cast his face in its artificial glow, bathing him both in light and shadow. Smoke curled off his cigarette, up up up until it faded into the darkness above. He watched it go. Silently, Nino turned on his camera, only breathing once he'd photographed the scene.

* * *

Nino is about to put that picture on the left, and then decides maybe he should put it on the right. He goes back and forth three more times, and then places it on the left, marking the start of a pile.

The next photograph makes his heart skip a beat and his mouth quiver into a smile, not only because of what he currently sees, but what he knows follows.

* * *

Lotta opened the door. "Nino!" she said, brightening, as if he was casually stopping by rather than by invitation.

"Hi, Lotta." Nino raised the brown bag in his hand. "I brought freshly-made bread."

Lotta clapped her hands in delight, and Nino heard a "Where from?" come from inside their apartment.

"And he doesn't even greet you," Lotta said, stepping aside to let Nino in.

Nino smirked. "That _is_ his form of greeting." He set the bread down in the kitchen, where Jean was making tea. "And it's from Pan. Where else?"

At least monthly, the three of them shared a breakfast at the Otus' place. It was a tradition they had maintained for a long time, and one Nino looked forward to, professional passivity be damned. Lotta unwrapped the bread and cut six thick slices.

"I don't know if I can eat two slices," Nino said, sitting at their table. There were also fruits and muffins to be had, and Jean was now preparing omelettes.

"Who said it was two each?" she said, buttering the bread. "This is all my share."

"Hey," Jean said.

"I'm kidding!"

While Jean finished up the omelettes, Nino snapped a few pictures. None were particularly artfully composed, but the happiness and domesticity here were what he knew he should photograph more.

"All done," Jean said, sliding the last omelette on his own plate, and sitting down to join the other two.

"Oh, Nino," Lotta said, her hand covering her mouth as she chewed. She swallowed. "I almost forgot. We have strawberry jam right here, but Jean got a 'quince' marmalade the other day. Neither of us really liked it so we didn't put it out, sorry. It's in the fridge, if you want to try it."

"I'd like to," Nino said, standing up and walking to the fridge. He closed its door, looked back at the table, and the grid lines in his mind's eye lined up perfectly with what he saw. Lotta was talking animatedly, cutlery in her hands. Jean listened with eyes closed, savoring the bread. The colors of the kitchen were so bright, the food so perfectly set, it was almost as if they were in a modeling shoot. Nino took a picture without hesitation. Lotta noticed.

"Come and eat instead of taking pictures, Nino," she chided. "Your food will get cold."

"Right, right," he said, making his way back.

"Can I see the picture, though?"

Nino showed her, and she smiled, but then her happy expression turned to a frown.

"What is it?" he asked. "Do you not like it?" He thought it was a wonderful picture, but if told, he would delete it immediately.

"I do, but... you're not in it."

Nino blinked. He had not been expecting that critique. "I'm not," he said, lamely, not knowing what else to say. "I was in the kitchen, taking it."

"You could have waited until you were back here and then we'd all have posed!"

Something he could answer. "That makes the picture less organic. I prefer taking them when I see something happen on its own." He took a bite of his food, hoping the conversation ended at that and not where he thought Lotta was going. "And I don't photograph well," he added for good measure.

"Don't be so modest, Nino. You're handsome in person and surely also in a picture."

Nino took another bite of his breakfast.

Lotta continued. "And don't just take it from me! Jean, tell him he's handsome."

"You're handsome," Jean said, and Nino briefly choked on the food in his throat. Somehow, the other two didn't notice, and Nino was able to wash down the food with a hearty gulp of tea.

"See?" Lotta said. "We need a picture with you."

"Right _now_?" he said, hoarse.

"Yeah!" Lotta got up and went to Nino's right. "Jean, you get on the left."

Her brother did so. Nino turned his head between the two of them, mouth open in an argument he couldn't bring himself to make.

Lotta swiped Nino's camera from around his neck. She turned it on and stretched her arm out in front of her. "I have no idea if we're all in the frame," she admitted.

Nino found his voice. "Probably not, because-"

Lotta got closer to Nino and bent so she was at about his level. Jean copied her, and Nino's left side felt hotter than it had any right to be.

"On the count of three!" Lotta said.

"Wait-"

"Onetwothree!" she said, much too quickly. She turned the camera around and previewed what she'd taken. She frowned. "Neither of you are posing! We need another one. Nino, can you delete this?" She handed the camera back to Nino. He regarded the picture. Even though Lotta hadn't seen how to frame them, and even though she was the only one posing, because Jean was looking confusedly at her, and Nino with a hint of panic, it wasn't necessarily bad. It was very them, if anything.

"I think," he said, "I'd like to keep it. Unless you hate how you look, then I will delete it."

"I look fine, I just don't like that neither of you are smiling. You can keep it. Let's just take another." She eyed them both sternly. "And _pose_ this time." 

* * *

He puts the picture of just Jean and Lotta to the left, and the first one of all of them together is the first on the right. His ears are a little warm looking at the second try of their group photo. Lotta's pose has hardly changed from the previous, but Jean wears that small, private smile of his. And this past Nino looks so authentically happy it's contagious in the present. That becomes the second picture in the right-side pile.

What he looks at next is one of a smiling Lotta, surrounded by flowers, smelling a white rose.

* * *

Jean stuck a finger into his collar, stretching it. "Hot," he muttered.

"It's not illegal for ACCA personnel to remove their jackets, you know," Nino quipped.

Jean smiled, unbuttoning his jacket. "If it turns out it is, and I'm arrested, you'll bail me out?"

"You don't even need to ask," Nino said, and meant it far more than what Jean realized, than what his duties entailed.

From a good ten feet in front of them, Lotta wheeled around. "Hurry, you two! The slower you walk, the less time we have to look around the park before Jean goes back to work."

"I like to enjoy walking," Jean said, when they'd caught up a few seconds later. He handed his jacket to Lotta.

"You'll enjoy the flowers more," Lotta replied, carefully putting Jean's jacket in her school bag. "They planted a whole section for ACCA's centennial."

They made their way to the botanical gardens. A sign advertising the 'ACCA Centennial Display Garden' led them to the right. And truly enough, on a humble manmade hill, a red bird made of carnations bloomed amid a circle of white ones. At the foot of the hill, in thirteen careful squares, was native flora from each of the districts. The diversity was striking: succulents, cacti, shrubs, trees, bushes, and flowers in all the colors.

"So pretty," Lotta breathed.

They drifted, going to separate squares. Nino didn't care much for plants, so he didn't linger long, but he could admit there was a beauty in this. A tropical-looking plant – a hibiscus, said the plaque by it – had his attention, but the tinny buzz of a mosquito zipping close to his ears broke it. He swatted at the air, and at the next square over spotted Lotta, bent low by a white rose bush. She held a bud delicately, and happily brought it under her nose. The ghost of her mother flitted in front of Nino.

 _Click_ , went Nino's camera. She cast her eyes up and waved him over.

"What did you snap?" she asked.

He showed her. "You looked like a princess, straight from a fairy-tale book."

Her smile widened. "Could you give me a copy? I do look nice in it."

"Of course."

He stayed with her as she took her time reading the plaques, admiring the plants.

She giggled, pointing to yellow tulips. "Aren't they familiar?"

He focused, eyes narrowed. "I don't-" He saw it suddenly. The way the bulbs dipped into themselves, and their color. They resembled the Otus siblings' hair. "They are," he said, grinning.

Footsteps crunching along the stone pathway made Nino and Lotta turn. Jean approached them, a flower in hand.

Lotta yelped. "Jean, did you pick that?!"

"Yes, why?"

"You're not supposed to remove the plants."

Jean looked at his flower. Back to Lotta. "Sorry."

"I hope no one saw... imagine, an ACCA inspector not knowing that gardens are only for viewing."

"I just wanted to show it to Nino," Jean said, eyes calmly on him now, "but you were far. So I brought it to you."

Nino's mind blanked.

"It reminded me of you," Jean continued, and handed the flower to Nino. "I guess you can keep it now."

Nino didn't register taking it, but he must have, as he felt the stem in his hand. Numbly, he looked down.

It was a vibrant blue.

He glanced back up. His mouth was dry, and he still couldn't remember how thinking or speaking worked. All he knew was the drumming in his ears, chest, and throat. 

* * *

Lotta and her rose go on the left pile, of course. And then there is that blue flower, the color as rich in photography as it had been in reality. This picture is a bit of an oddity. Nino doesn't typically photograph objects. But he'd known, once his wits had returned to him, that he had to preserve the flower's color besides mentally.

That one goes on the right pile.

There are two more photographs left. The one where Jean is drinking. And the one where he's not.

* * *

The lights were dim, and still Nino knew how Jean's face looked. Part was from common sense, and the other part from having gone through many other bar nights like this one. Just three-fourths of a pint down, yet Jean's cheeks were flushed, and there was a glassiness to his eyes. He rested his cheek on his hand, trying to appear casual. But if he spoke, he'd stumble over a longer word. He wouldn't care, though; the pleasant warmth in his head would matter more to him than social graces.

Nino drank from his second beer, emptying it. Only now was he beginning to feel any buzz. No more for him; he needed to have a working mind. And likely no more for Jean, whose blinking slowed each minute.

"I'm kind of jealous of how much you can handle," Jean mumbled.

"Hmm?"

Jean gestured to Nino's drinks, dried froth at their rims. Then he pointed at his single glass. "And you still look sober. I know I don't."

"You're fine," Nino lied.

"I don't believe you." Jean finished his beer. "Do you have a mirror on you?"

"No."

"Then let me see the picture you took earlier."

Caught. Earlier, when Jean had been looking distantly to the side, deep in reverie brought on by alcohol, Nino couldn't help but take a snapshot. He didn't think Jean had noticed.

He obliged.

Jean hummed, an 'I thought so' hum. "I wonder what a second drink would do to me."

"Nothing good." He glanced at the window. "It's getting dark out. We should go."

But Jean raised a finger in that universal sign for one more drink. It was brought to him faster than Nino could protest.

Through sheer will, Jean gulped the drink once, twice, _thrice_ , then set the glass down with a heavy clunk. "Wow," he said, pressing his fingers to his closed lids.

"Don't force yourself," Nino said, frowning.

"I'm not," Jean said. Another gulp. It went down easier.

The conversation lulled. Jean drank, further clouding his head. Nino watched, hoping that each sip would be the last.

When Jean was about halfway through, he paused. And said, "I regret this."

Nino laughed, the tension in the air dissipating.

Jean's smile was lazy. He traced the rim of his unfinished drink with a finger, lost in dreamy thought again. Nino soon had the camera in his hands. He framed Jean in the screen.

"Nino," Jean said as the picture was taken.

And the shot he saw after pressing the button was different.

In speaking, Jean had glanced up at him, meeting Nino's eyes through the lens of the camera. Looking _into_ him. And Jean's lips were parted, frozen on the first syllable of his name.

Nino's heart leaped to his throat. He thickly swallowed it back down.

"Nino," Jean said again.

He snapped his head up. "Yeah?"

"Would you do anything for me?"

His heart jumped back up at full force as the world spun. "I would."

Jean slumped against the back of his seat. "Like carrying me home?"

Or across a desert. Trekking over mountains. Wading through an ocean. "Yes."

"Great. Then paying for my drinks should be no trouble."

Nino stared.

"I remembered I left my wallet at the office," he said, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck, "but I'll pay you back."

Ah. The world settled back into normalcy.

Nino nodded mutely, and paid for them both. As they stood up to leave, Jean wobbled. Quick as a snake, Nino steadied him by the elbow.

"I'm fine," Jean said, straightening up. "I can walk on my own."

"Are you sure?" Nino's throat still felt a little weird, and he thought he also sounded off, but Jean either did not notice or ignored it.

"Yeah." He smiled. "But if anything does happen to me, you're right here."

There went Nino's mad pulse again.

They walked to the Otus' building, although at a slower speed than usual. It was late, and Nino didn't want to risk waking Lotta, so he used his own key copy to quietly open the door.

Nino turned to Jean, about to exchange a goodbye, but Jean falling on Nino robbed him of the words.

He gripped him tightly. "Jean?"

Jean mumbled, eyes closed. "M'tired."

Nino's hold relaxed. He was just falling asleep. He shifted Jean's weight so it was easier to lead him into his room. Jean was still able to walk, but leaned on Nino, body warm and heavy. He collapsed back-first onto his bed, shoes on and all, already breathing deeply, evenly.

Nino removed his sunglasses, long useless. He rubbed the indentations they left behind, and then carefully removed Jean's shoes, setting them by the bed – because it wouldn't do to dirty the sheets. He went to the closet where he knew they kept blankets, brought back the lightest one, and put it over Jean – because the nights got chilly. And then he looked at Jean, calm still in sleep. A lock of hair had somehow gotten swept in the wrong direction.

Nino's fingers twitched.

He should brush it back. (Because he wanted to).

But it wasn't important; it was just a matter of looks.

Well, it looked odd.

Unimportant. This was not his job.

He was more than his job.

He was not. Only through it had he ever met Jean.

He was more than his job. He was his own person.

How would the king react if he knew how Nino felt?

_He was more than his job. He was his own person._

And his hand fixed Jean's hair, touch ever light. Jean did not stir.

Nino's head thumped, and he exhaled only when he was under the door frame. And he thought he heard a quiet 'thank you' before leaving, but it must have been his own selfish, alcohol-laced wish. 

* * *

Nino places the still, pensive Jean on the left.

He now only holds the moment Jean had looked at him like _he_ was the focus of the picture, the one thing that mattered. A foolish thought, he's painfully aware. But after pursuing photography so long, and reading the nuances of facial expressions – of Jean's expressions – he has a good grasp on the man. And there's not much else that look could be. So he privately clings to the hope.

And that one goes on the right, rightfully so.

He stands, heading to his bookcase, pulling out a seemingly boring book on photographic composition. Except covers are deceiving. He opens it, and out falls a pressed flower, faded blue. Hastily, as if someone might see, he picks it up and tucks it back in. He takes the book to the table, flipping through the pages.

Photographs.

The ones not for his job. The ones for him.

Finally, a page with room. He takes the right-hand pile, placing them in the little cut-out spaces. Once done, he closes the book, smiling, making sure the flower doesn't fall off again before he shelves it back.

 

**Author's Note:**

> nino has a crush on jean and i can't be convinced otherwise


End file.
